Client

Project information and goals

Nicolas is one of our established clients we’ve been working with for over 5 years. Our relationship with Nicolas began in 2011 with the implementation of the Playground Equipment store. The aim was to improve the design and aesthetics of the website, as well as add some functionality to it.

Development history

The site was launched in 2011 with a minimal functionality that we would expand during the following months. As for the design, we chose a dreamy, childish style that would take the clients back to their childhood.

In 2012 we continued to work on "Playground Equipment" and added some extra design elements as well as extended "Playground Equipment" store functionality.

In 2013 "Playground Equipment" design got reworked to present products better and in a more self-evident way, following the minimalistic trends of the year. This enabled us to better highlight the products and quality of the website. We removed the "bubbles”, but kept the corporate colors and used them in the new user interface. Also, we developed the site’s first printed catalog and added it to the site in PDF format.

In 2014 we moved the website to the new platform, adopting OpenCart platform as the new base for the website. The move was not an easy task, requiring the SEO parameters to stay the same, which is described better in the case below.

We also made another iteration of the design that year аnd changed many things on the website, including improved logo and more precise corporate colors. The front page got a screen-wide advertising banner, attracting attention of new visitors while maintaining a clean UI.

A responsive layout for mobile and Retina displays was added to the site along with SEO texts and a blog page. After those changes there was nothing in the design that tried to compete with the product for customer’s attention.

During the period of 2015-2016 we developed a dealer selection page and made a fresh design for the second edition of the "Playground Equipment" printed catalog.

Since then, we’ve been maintaining the site, refining the features and keeping them up to date with web technologies.

Challenges and their creative solutions

During the development we encountered a few unorthodox issues that required creative solutions to solve. One of those occurrences was a quote page that we were asked to implement on the “Playground Equipment”. In the most basic terms a quote page is what allows a client to pick the product they want, customize it and order it, all without having a lengthy conversation with a manager and having to decide during the call.

At the time the Playground Equipment was using the BigCommerce SaaS platform (software as a service) and that put many limitations on functionality that we could add to the site. By default, the site had a standard shopping cart with an online payment option, and we had to change that to a quote page. In order to do that we had to create that quote page using Ajax, creating a completely custom form that worked on the SaaS platform without any changes in platform configuration.

Another challenge was moving the website from BigCommerce to the OpenCart CMS in 2014, which required us to painstakingly adapt every page to maintain the site structure and keep the Google Search rankings.

Results

“Playground Equipment" store design highlights:
- A new logo with a stylized child on the slide and the store’s motto
- A new corporate style with stylized soap bubbles as a symbol of childhood and childishness
- Bright and catchy headlines and clear borders around every functional block on the site

"Playground Equipment" features:
selection of the nearest dealer via an interactive map
selection of individual colors or design themes for each element of compound playgrounds.

A printed catalog we created in 2012 since then has grown to 192 pages:

Conclusion

We know that a profitable online store is a constantly evolving system. That’s why we focus on building a long-term relationship with our client from the very first contact, helping them to make the best of their website.